ends in an overflow. In 1874,[4240] there
were already 24 departments in which the sum of additional centimes
reached or surpassed the sum of the principal. "In a very few years,"
says an eminent economist,[4241] "it is probable that, for nearly all
of the departments," the overcharge will be similar. Already, for a long
time, in the total of personal taxation,[4242] the local budgets
raised more than the state, and, in 1888, the principal of the tax real
property, 183 millions, is less than the total of centimes joined with
it, 196 millions. Coming generations are burdened over and beyond the
present generation, while the sum of loans constantly increases, like
that of taxation. The indebted communes, except Paris, owed, altogether,
in 1868, 524 millions francs[4243], in 1871, 711 millions, and in 1878,
1322 millions francs.[4244] Paris, in 1868, already owed 1326 millions,
March 30, 1878, it owed 1988 millions. In this same Paris, the annual
contribution of each inhabitant for local expenses was, at the end
of the first Empire, in 1813, 37 francs per head, at the end of the
Restoration,[4245] francs, after the July monarchy, in 1848, 43 francs,
and, at the end of the second Empire, in 1869, 94 francs. In 1887,45 it
is 110 francs per head. [4246]

VIII. Final result in a tendency to bankruptcy.

Such, in brief, is the history of local society from 1789 down to 1889.
After the philosophic demolition of the Revolution and the practical
constructions of the Consulate, it could no longer be a small patrimony,
something to take pride in, an object of affection and devotion to its
inhabitants. The departments and communes have become more or less vast
lodging-houses, all built on the same plan and managed according to the
same regulations one as passable as the other, with apartments in them
which, more or less good, are more or less dear, but at rates which,
higher or lower, are fixed at a uniform tariff over the entire
territory, so that the 36,000 communal buildings and the 86 department
hotels are about equal, it making but little difference whether one
lodges in the latter rather than in the former. The permanent taxpayers
of both sexes who have made these premises their home, have not obtained
recognition for what they are, invincibly and by nature, a syndicate of
neighbors, an involuntary, obligatory and private association, in which
physical solidarity engenders moral solidarity, a natural, limited
society who